Friday, March 1, 2013

Carousel Cake

Kids just love carousel rides and I just cannot understand why.  I don't enjoy rides going round and round, makes me giddy all the time.  I'll rather go for more exciting rides, give me roller coaster anytime.
 
The first time I saw a carousel cake was in Wendy's blog.  I never knew such a cake exist.  I told myself, one day I'll make this cake, one day....  To my own surprise, I decide to make it for DD3 this year.  All my children are unique but DD3 is exceptionally special as her birthday falls on 29 Feb.  I mean, how many of us can plan our birthdate to be on this date?
 
To celebrate her very special day, I decided on a carousel cake for her school celebration.  But this decision got me really busy.  I want the cake with mostly edible items/decorations, and not simply relying on some plastic materials/toys.  Everything must be handmade, from scratch.
 
Wendy made her horses using chocolate, I'm no good in handling chocolates so this option is out.  After a few sleepless nights, I decided on a gingerbread cookie.  I didn't want butter cookies as I'm not a butter person.  Moreover, this gingerbread cookie is a chewy cookie, relatively light (ie weight) if you compare with other cookies.  I made the cookies 3 days ahead, at 1am.  By the time I was done washing and packing up, it was already 3 in the morning.  The next few nights weren't any better.  I had to pipe the outline, leave to dry before I could flood the cookie and start piping the colours.  A lot of time was spent on the cookies.
 
For the cake base, I made an orange chiffon cake with 6 eggs.  I only like chiffon cakes in layered cakes, they are so light and soft.  However, that's where my fear comes in.  Can the chiffon cake support another cake on top?  I read through Wendy's entry again and again, it seems that it is doable to just stack the cake with a middle support and some straws.

I wanted to make my own candles too upon seeing NC's pictures but she told me she has extras and offered me one!  Yippy, now I don't have to make my own.

Looks like I'm all done?  Wrong.  I made 2 portions of SMBC (black raspberry powder) but they don't look like it is enough for the fillings, crumb coat and frosting of both cakes.  I suspect it's probably enough for 1.5 cakes.  I do not have enough time to make another batch so did a quick check with my neighbor, NC, to see if she has any frozen stash.  Thankfully I have this neighbor who bakes.  She did a few trials for her daughter's birthday cake just 2 weeks ago and there were leftover IMBC (red raspberry powder) in her freezer.  I don't care, I don't mind, I just grabbed her offer and frosted the bottom cake with her IMBC and the top cake with my own SMBC.  I believe I could have done a better decorating job if I had sufficient buttercream.

Enough said, let the pictures do the talking.
 




And these are all you need to stack the cakes.

Besides the carousel cake, DD3 requested for a butterfly cake.  That's another long story behind and I won't bore my readers here.

Not the perfect looking cake but my birthday girl is happy, so who cares if it looks horrendous?  Hahaha!

 Chocolate chiffon cake with pitted cherries and dairy whipped cream.
 

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